Past:

A workshop on “Pidgins, creoles and nonstandard varieties in education” was held on 6-7 July 1994 as part of the Australian Linguistic Institute, at La Trobe University, Melbourne. The aims were

• to discuss some of the issues concerning the use of these often lowly regarded varieties of language in formal education,
• to describe some strategies and activities involving these varieties which have actually been used in teacher education and classroom teaching, and
• to present some research findings on the effectiveness of such activities.

Presentations were made by Jeff Siegel (on general background issues, teaching initial literacy and research findings), Charlene Sato (political aspects, teacher training and classroom discourse management with regard to Hawaiian Creole English), Diana Eades (Aboriginal English) and Joyce Hudson (the FELIKS in-service course for teachers of Kriol-speaking students). In addition, Denise Angelo spoke about Kriol in Katherine and Geoff Smith about Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea.

Some lively discussion also took place among the more than 60 participants.

Four papers relevant to PACE were given at the conference of the Society for Caribbean Linguistics in association with the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics, held in Guyana on 24-27 August 1994:

• C. Albino: “The use of Cape Verde Creole in Portuguese schools.”
• Dennis R. Craig: “Language education revisited in the Commonwealth Caribbean.”
• Monica E. Taylor: “The economics of English language teaching and learning in Jamaica – ‘dead’ stock on dusty shelves?”
• Hubert Devonish: “Caribbean vernacular languages, technology, and the emergence of an alternative national consciousness.”

According to one correspondent, Hubert Devonish gave his presentation in Jamaican Creole, which caused quite a stir!

Coming up:

The conference of the Society of Pidgin and Creole Linguistics, in association with the Linguistics Society of America: 6-7 January 1995 in New Orleans, USA. Further information from Armin Schwegler, Dept of Spanish and Portuguese, UC Irvine, Irvine, CA 92717 USA; fax (714) 856-6901 email aschwegl@uci.edu.

The first meeting of the proposed Association for Pidgins and Creoles in the Pacific in association with the Second International Conference on Oceanic Linguistics: 3-7 July 1995 in Suva, Fiji.

Further information from:
The Editor, PACE Newsletter